Anti-encroachment drive: Police checkpost, school in administration’s sights

Several shops and houses demolished to widen Sirikot Road

HARIPUR: The Haripur district administration on Thursday said they had written to the education and police departments about their respective buildings which were encroaching on government land.

The letters had been written as the administration demolished shops and houses which had been unlawfully constructed on government land. The drive was undertaken to widen Sirikot Road.

Briefing the media about the encroached land, the AC said that “right of way” as per KPHA record was 110 feet on both sides of the Sirikot Road between Panian Chowk to Behra village. However, a recent demarcation had revealed that people had illegally occupied government land measuring about three kanals by constructing shops, kiosks and even houses

Accompanied by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Highway Authority (KPHA), officials of the district council and Haripur Assistant Commissioner Arif Khan Yousafzai launched a anti- encroachment operation.

During the first phase of the anti-encroachment drive, the team assigned to   clear the road of illegal constructions had reclaimed around 32 marlas of government land between the Panian and Bhera villages.

Yousafzai explained that heavy machinery was used to demolish nine wooden kiosks, four shops and three houses which the owners had built over the years. He added that the encroaching structures were demolished after their owners had been given several notices to move.

The official added that they had approached the concerned departments for the removal of a police checkpost post in Panian and a government primary school for boys in Bhera.

Asked about how government institutions had come to occupy public land, he said that that both the education and police department have had a track record of doing so in the past.

Yousafzai added that some other encroachers had agreed to remove the objectionable structures voluntarily over the next four days. Asked what assurances had been given that they will comply, the assistant commissioner said that they had submitted sworn affidavits with his office.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2016.